There was a lot of interesting stuff in chapter 8. The first thing that caught my eye was Gallagher's response to a student's question "Why do have to read this book?" If one of my student's would have asked me that question I'm not really sure what I would say. After looking over ways to respond though, I have a better idea. Instead of just saying something like "because", I can something like "It's a great book and it teaches you about ----". I can say something that makes sense and is true. It will get the students curious or excited about the book instead of bored or uninterested.
Gallagher also listed many good activities but my favorite was the theme notebook on page 160. It's a great way to show students that issues in books happen in real life as well. It also gives them a little freedom because they can pick an issue that they are most interested in, and write about topics that relate. They also have to do some research to complete the notebook - they need 10 different sources. They then take the real world and pull examples that relate to the topic they have picked. Gallagher did this with his class after reading To Kill a Mockingbird, but I think that you could do it with most books, which is always good
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I really liked the Theme Notebook idea as well. What I am loving about Gallagher is how he gives us very practical ideas about how to connect the text to the world and to make English class so much more relevant to our students.
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